


Smile Lines

by dramatic owl (snarky_panda)



Category: Mulan (1998)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Female Friendship, Gen, In-Laws, Pre-Canon, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 19:30:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16729347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snarky_panda/pseuds/dramatic%20owl
Summary: The lines in her new mother-in-law’s face were smile lines and she no longer worried.





	Smile Lines

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the ladiesbingo challenge, for the prompt: laughter.

Yuan Li imagined she was no different from any other bride and bride-to-be, nervous about the wedding, nervous about the strange man she would see for the first time on her wedding day and spend her life with, nervous about in-laws that she might not get along with.

On the day she was set to meet the matchmaker Li barely recognized herself in the glass. Layers of paint had drastically changed her face. For the first time in her life her hair was gathered up in the married woman’s style and her stomach fluttered at the sight of it. She didn’t allow the tears that threatened to fall at the thought of leaving her parents and childhood home, for they would have ruined the make-up that had been applied so meticulously.

“Too skinny. Not good for bearing sons.”

The matchmaker’s tone as she pronounced her initial assessment devastated Li, but she didn’t flinch. She remained still and poised, and kept her face expressionless as the old woman circled her and studied her hips, frowning and shaking her head.

Her narrow waist and hips appeared to be the only negative. Li knew the final admonition by heart and her recitation of it was flawless. She poured tea for the matchmaker properly and gracefully, filling the cup to exactly the right level, making sure she positioned her arms so the flowing sleeves of her dress never brushed the cup’s edge or the tabletop. The Fa and Yuan families had equal social and economic standing, the birth charts of the bride- and groom-to-be were compatible, and both families agreed that it was an auspicious match. They moved forward with plans for her marriage to the second Fa son.

A captain in the Emperor’s army, currently stationed at Lanzhou, Fa Zhou was reputed to be an excellent and honorable warrior. Due to his demonstrated battle skills and brilliance as a military strategist he’d risen quickly through the ranks, and he was one of the youngest men to ever earn the rank of captain. It wasn’t her place to ask questions, nor did she have any say in who she married, but Li wondered how much time she would actually spend with her future husband. When the Emperor sent him away on military campaigns or he was reassigned to an even more distant garrison, she would not go with him. She would remain alone at home. It was entirely possible she’d be a widow prematurely, living alone with his family, and what if they didn't like each other?

When she saw Fa Zhou for the first time on her wedding day, she thought his face a kind one, and handsome too, and relief settled in her body. But it was his mother whose face really struck her; it already showed the lines of middle-age, but they were smile lines.

At the post-wedding tea ceremony, Li knelt before Qiuyue and served her new mother-in-law tea with lotus seeds and two red dates as custom dictated. There was a merry glint in Qiuyue’s eyes when she smiled upon receiving her tea, and Li knew in that moment that she and her mother-in-law would be amicable companions, perhaps even good friends. 


End file.
